And we’re off! Baby-Led Weaning: Week One

At 5 1/2 months to the day, M started his food exploration with a cucumber…

And he’s since progressed to melons

and figs, too

they were fun!

The foods M’s eaten so far have been the fruits we were eating ourselves, for breakfast as that’s when he’s most alert and interested in eating. The fig we gave him whole, and to make it easier to hold, the skin was left on both the cucumber and melon.

We’re two weeks in, and have had mixed reactions to baby-led weaning. Some people love the idea, some don’t agree he’s old enough to manage non-pureed food and some are a bit perplexed by the idea of putting M, to an extent, in charge of his own meals. Already we can see that feeding him like this is going to cause debate, and that’s a good thing! Despite the fact the national health service in the UK has now added baby-led-weaning to its list of recommended weaning techniques, people still believe purees are the only way to go, and in Turkey, milk puddings and soups are traditions weaning methods which hold tight today. Neither British culture, nor Turkish supports the fact that breastmilk provides all the nutrients a baby needs for the first year of life, and both encourage the notion that by 8 months baby should be eating 3 ‘meals’ a day.

At the moment, M’s definitely not ready for meals. Food is fun, its a game he sees his Baba and I indulge in that he wants to join, and that’s just fine. Some food is making its way through (who knew nappies could be interesting?!), M’s practising his chewing motion, he’s experiencing new textures and taste sensations, he continues to get all the nutrients he needs from breastmilk and ‘meal’ times are stress-free for all of us. Win-win, it seems.

I'm an expat Mum, determined to teach Baby M about food from the produce up. Baby-Led Weaning, or as I like to think, Eat Real Food, Baby is the first step in instilling an ethos of eating (mostly) seasonal, local, fresh produce.